RCExplorer Tricopter V4
- Thread starter JimCR120
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- f3fc fpv rcexplorer tricopter v4
When I use zip tie landing gear, I put the copter on a roll of packing tape on my desk when I level it in CF. The tape roll is tall enough that the zip ties don't touch my leveled desk giving me a level platform. 
Thank you all.
@Psyborg, you busted me. Unless i keep it moving forward I tend to lose orientation. Now that I have something I can fly where there is ample room, I hope to make that diminish.
@cranial, the landing gear/battery placement is one of the things I've been focusing on. I want something with some shock absorption, not cumbersome or heavy, with potential for modifications for snow and water landings, and aesthetically acceptable, just those few things. What I'm thinking is moving away from boom mounted and toward lower plate mounted landing skids made of curved piano wire.
I want to narrow flight modes down to 2, stability and agility, but they're not called that in Triflight but horizon, angle, and acro I think and I want to see which two of those 3 fit me.
These flights were done on a 4S. I've done some 3S but I think the voltage alarm needs to be set up for it otherwise it's constantly giving me alerts that are more prevalent with more aggressive stick movement. I think I need to be decided on my flying style before tweaking much so I can pursue an actual goal without too many changes.
@Psyborg, you busted me. Unless i keep it moving forward I tend to lose orientation. Now that I have something I can fly where there is ample room, I hope to make that diminish.
@cranial, the landing gear/battery placement is one of the things I've been focusing on. I want something with some shock absorption, not cumbersome or heavy, with potential for modifications for snow and water landings, and aesthetically acceptable, just those few things. What I'm thinking is moving away from boom mounted and toward lower plate mounted landing skids made of curved piano wire.
I want to narrow flight modes down to 2, stability and agility, but they're not called that in Triflight but horizon, angle, and acro I think and I want to see which two of those 3 fit me.
These flights were done on a 4S. I've done some 3S but I think the voltage alarm needs to be set up for it otherwise it's constantly giving me alerts that are more prevalent with more aggressive stick movement. I think I need to be decided on my flying style before tweaking much so I can pursue an actual goal without too many changes.
For my LOS tricopters I put red LEDs on the rear facing angles and white LEDs in the front.
Doing a roll flying away from you looks pretty cool LOS this way and you can see which way you are facing even on oblique angles pretty easily.
For a while I zip-tied a 12" long DTFB arrow to the top of my tricopter pointing forward to help with LOS orientation. It also helped with yaw stability on the good old KK2.1 in forward flight too
I was thinking I could buy red props for port and green for starboard to keep with the air/sea navigation lights arrangement but I think I'll be going for bigger 2 bladed CF when I graduate up from these (and shortening the booms). So then I think I do it up with LED's perhaps with some additional enhancements.
Acro is agility, no auto leveling at all. Angle has a hard limit angle that you cannot exceed. Horizon is similar to angle except at the extreme end of the sticks where you can do flips and rolls, but when you center the stick it goes back to auto level.
FPV is definitely in the future of this build.Of course you can always just shine it off and go FPV.
Thanks. It really wasn't all that hard. I wouldn't mind sahring settings at all. Knowing how to share them is another thing. Would I be correct in thinking it is something I can access, copy, and paste from Cleanflight?
Thanks for the reminder. Dan's told me too. The names don't seem very intuitive. Acro does but I would think horizon stabilizes and angle would allow steeper angles.
Does anyone know how tochange the voltage alarm setting? If not I can bebop over to RCE and ask them.
Does anyone have experience running LED's froma ser up like mine?
I built mine before I had heard of addressable LEDs so mine were simple 12v LED strips. Mine can be cut down to 3 LEDs which I soldered directly into my lipo wire harness (before PDBs were common).
When I have time to work on my tricopter again and after I get it flying, I will probably solder 3 short 3 light strips directly to the PDB main power rails using wire (signal and ground) trimmed from the ESCs. They will be pretty bright on 4S!
When I have time to work on my tricopter again and after I get it flying, I will probably solder 3 short 3 light strips directly to the PDB main power rails using wire (signal and ground) trimmed from the ESCs. They will be pretty bright on 4S!
I would like them to be controllable from the transmitter though. I won't want them on all the time and being able to turn them on for low light conditions or having 2 or 3 light modes would be what I'm hoping for. I know there are transmitter controlled switches. I have one for fixed wing that plugs into a channel on the rcvr but I'm unfamiliar how to make it work with the flight controller on the tri. There is a connection for LED's on the board and I saw a section for LED's in CleanFlight but am unsure how to employ that.
The LED connector on the board is for addressable LED strips. I have used them on a number of builds and the way it works in CleanFlight/BetaFlight is really simple to set up. The dynamic parameters are nice for displaying alerts, amed, flight mode, throttle, etc...
I have also used an external controller that can control up to 4x10-LED strips that I got HERE. The nice thing about this one is you can pass a PWM channel to it to controll brightness.
I have also used an external controller that can control up to 4x10-LED strips that I got HERE. The nice thing about this one is you can pass a PWM channel to it to controll brightness.
PsyBorg
Wake up! Time to fly!
On my Versacopter I had 2 sets of 2812 led strips with 8 led's one for front and one for back. Programming them in clean flight is easy as can be. I had six white leds for headlights up front with the last two set up to change colors for arming status and two of the six set up as blinkers for turning. Same on the rear except that the six were red.
I powered each set from an esc since the originals I got with the kit had bec's. One on front and one in the back. I sid have to add one diode in series on the fronts to get them to read properly as they are very sensitive to voltage range. I had to add two in the rear to get them to function properly as well. That is where most people run into problems. Constant voltage leds are finiky that way when they want 4.8 v that does not mean they will work on 4.9 v or higher off a 5v bec.
If you want I can look into my Amazon account and get you the exact ones I have. Super simple to set up and use and easily seen for orientation with my bad eye to well over 50 yards.
Oh yeah and they were easily set up on a switch so I could turn them off to save power or when flying FPV alone ( like I ever get to fly with others...)
I powered each set from an esc since the originals I got with the kit had bec's. One on front and one in the back. I sid have to add one diode in series on the fronts to get them to read properly as they are very sensitive to voltage range. I had to add two in the rear to get them to function properly as well. That is where most people run into problems. Constant voltage leds are finiky that way when they want 4.8 v that does not mean they will work on 4.9 v or higher off a 5v bec.
If you want I can look into my Amazon account and get you the exact ones I have. Super simple to set up and use and easily seen for orientation with my bad eye to well over 50 yards.
Oh yeah and they were easily set up on a switch so I could turn them off to save power or when flying FPV alone ( like I ever get to fly with others...)
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